Date for end of sponsored registrations for this years DebConf11 in Banja Luka was set for May 8th, today that date has officially been extended to May 19th. Now to answer your question on “why are you extending sponsored registrations 12 hours before it ends” here’s the answer.

Registrations are going fine, we have more then 300 attendees who registered so far, it is due to change in our monetary resources as sponsorship level has changed from one to another, and we’ve be granted to welcome more people. But it is also to give some possible attendees more time and information, as I’ve got a feeling a lot of people from this region and elsewhere have been lacking some even general information, and thus I’d like to bring everything closer to everybody.

Before anything, heading to our website might be a good start as we have immense amount of information up there. Since government of Republika Srpska is our greatest and main financial sponsor, local team has made a document for them in which we tried to explain most basic and crucial things from what DebCamp and DebConf is over logistical/statistical data to what we have planned for Fun and Free time, so checking out that document might be a good idea as well DebConf11 – Plan and Program.

Since that might be too much for somebody as the documents stretches to some ~30 pages, I’ll try to give answers to most common/asked questions.

Registrations

Who should register? In plain English, everybody. Only people that don’t need to register are people who will attend Debian day, please see “Plan and Program” section 5.3 for more information on Debian Day.

If you want to attend any of the DebConf lectures/presentations/whatever you should register. Registrations will play great deal in this years DebConf as if you register you’ll get accreditation with your name on it and what you’re allowed to do. Whether you have sponsored food/accommodation and thus allowed to eat for free or that you can sleep in certain hotel, or whether you’re allowed to the pools for free; also as we’re planning to have tight security in our Venue, in order for you to even enter Venue building you’ll need to have accreditation on you.

So, if you’re planning to do anything with DebConf please do register.

What is DebCamp/should I attend DebCamp?

Please refer to “Plan and Program” document it’s all said at the end of page 15.

Sponsorship

After registrations this is next thing that is brought up and that is most unclear to most of you.

You’re able to request travel, accommodation and food sponsorship, what each of those means is pretty self elaborate. But the real question here might be, who is eligible to request sponsorship? Again, everybody. What are is the criterion for getting sponsorship? There really isn’t a written rule who gets the sponsorship and who doesn’t but if you have ever been involved or contributed in any sort of way to Debian, or even have contributed or have been involved in any open source projects you’re more then welcome to apply for sponsorship.

Furthermore, due to the funds that we have been granted from Government of Republika Srpska, I even encourage you to ask sponsorship, don’t be intimidated and “just do it”

Professional/Corporate

This is category for those who are sent by their companies, and whose participation/attendance is sponsored by the same. Professional covers the price of actual costs of their visit, while the corporate is double that price, which is for those who besides paying the actual costs also want to contribute money and help Debian.

Organized transport and getting to Banja Luka

Now, for those who are flying to Banja Luka I personally told you to come to via Zagreb. Why did I do this, if Banja Luka has its own airport? I told you this because Zagreb is much larger airport and thus has many budget companies, meaning cheaper flights. Once the registrations are closed, based on your arrival/departure dates we’ll be able to statistically predict how many of you will be coming to Zagreb on each date and each time as we’re planning to have organized transport. This means that we’ll send buses/shuttles to pick people up in Zagreb. Of course to have this organized we’ll need to set up arrival/departure pages with all the information that’s need for us to have this organized.

Now, for those who want to come directly to Banja Luka airport this might be bit pricer then going via Zagreb, but not by much. I personally value my time and I even fly from Zagreb to Sarajevo Phil for example booked his flight just this morning from London via Ljubljanja to Banja Luka and it wasn’t that much more expensive then Zagreb. Also worth noting is that Banja Luka might be limited for some destinations, but I for a fact know that there are flights coming from Zurich, Ljubljanja, Belgrade and so on. Maybe someone from Banja Luka could follow up on this one with more information.

Questions?

With this post I hope I have brought some of these topics closer to you and that I made some things clearer. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave your comments or email whatever you’re concerned about to our mailing list on: debconf11-localteam@lists.debconf.org